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Carefully, I made my way over. By watching where I stepped, and by leaning with the angle of the floor, I managed to reach the first bookcase.
I pulled on a book, and its cover broke immediately away. Beneath it the pages were mush. Illegible. Unreadable…
Damn.
Not discouraged, I looked up and saw that the top row of the ancient tomes seemed slimmer and more defined. They’d been in the water less. Seen less damage.
I grabbed one and opened it. I could see everything, every word. Every sketch and diagram and description. Every letter, squiggled on parchment by some long-lost quill dragged through the darkest ink…
And there were hundreds of these books. Maybe thousands. Most would be illegible, but a good chunk of them could be salvaged. Recovered.
Centuries’ worth of knowledge — once thought lost — regained and re-transcribed. All because of me, and Damien, and Broderick…
“HOLY SHIT!”
It was amazing. It was incredible. It was everything the Order had hoped it would—
“Holy shit indeed.”
The voice was feminine, but way too sickly sweet. The tone was sardonic and biting. It belonged to someone with… malice.
“Too bad you won’t get to read any of it.”
On the other side of the chamber, a woman stepped into view. She had red hair and white skin, her mouth a thin, unwavering line drawn from cheek to cheek. Even half-shrouded in shadow, I knew who it was.
“Hello Karessa.”
I was biding my time, sizing her up. If what Broderick and Damien told me was true, she was more dangerous than anything else.
“Is this why you came?” she asked mockingly. She snatched a volume from a nearby shelf and scoffed as it fell apart in her hands. “For a moldy pile of ink-smeared books?”
She was stepping softly, on an angle. But still moving in my direction. Still closing the distance.
“Did you tell them you loved them?” she asked. “Is that how you got them to bring you
here?”
I shrugged, noncommittally. “The better question would be do you honestly care?”
Her face crossed with anger. I’d touched a nerve.
“Of course I care! They were my—”
“Or are we entertaining all these lame theatrics,” I cut her off, “just because you got scorned?”
I wanted her off balance. Wanted her angry, even out of control.
She practically turned purple.
“You know the whole thing sounds really pitiful,” I said, “trying to grasp onto something that’s no longer yours. Holding onto your ex lovers’ totems like some sort of desperate prize, in the childlike hopes that they’ll come running back to you.”
Her eyes flared. Her mouth curled back in a snarl. I could see her shaking… her entire body shuddering in gruesome, unnatural ways.
The metamorphosis couldn’t be far off.
“You’re like some adolescent schoolgirl,” I actually laughed. “One with—”
Karessa charged. Charged me in human form, even as her limbs extended outward and broke hideously free of their skin.
